#int. w/mikhael.nornwatch

[alucardrakul]

@blightedmikhael location: Nornwatch Keep notes: troupe 1: Nornwatch Keep

The blighted lands were riddled with the bodies of young men who looked to prove their mettle against a fable: they always came up wanting. Ego would get a man killed as effectively as a blade, and the arrogance that permeated these refugees held some of the blame for the rampant plague that was running through the rank and fold.

Archivist Iskrates was working on a way to reverse the taint, or so he'd claimed. Alucard's father was apparently capable of doing this, but the dhampir had never seen it first hand. Like so many things, it was one of the secrets that the vampires hoarded among themselves, and Alucard was a product of this promise.

Red eyes fixated on the warrior who appeared to be poking at a piece of blighted meat, as if he were considering what to make of it. "You should throw that away." Alucard's voice ran along the old stones of the Keep as he tried to make out any signs of taint present on the other. "Or better yet, burn it."

[alucardrakul]

"The blight does not discriminate; devil, dhampir, or cambion, we do our best not to help it along its path." Empathetic and informative, Alucard did his best to put it gently but delivered every word with characteristically harsh, deadpan severity. Blood didn't flow through the dhampir's veins, but he could feel a throbbing at his temple as a migraine began to set in. Alucard hoped the man was better with his weaponry than exercising common sense. Legionnaires were immune to the effects of the blight, but this one would make a poor member of their ranks. "You're far from home, put your thoughts first toward survival, or else you won't live long enough to worry about how quickly the blight will consume you." That was the best advice that he could offer before he moved to put the fretting man behind him.

“Does that include beings of other species as well?” Mikhael asks, in an attempt to broach the topic with delicacy. The curiosity he holds, at the end, is born from how little he knows of his non-human origin. Mikhael has never met his father, never heard anything else than the bare bones of his existence for it was all his mom had known. In the end, he doesn’t want to know his father, but he does want to know what it means to be a cambion. There is no guide to his existence, no community to find. His kind is forever hated both because of their parentage and because of the blighted curse that follows their track. That does not stop his curiosity, simmering as it is. 

Would the blight consume someone who is already blighted?

He wants to know, but the dhampir is right. He wants to know, but he is more afraid of dying than he is interested in finding out. 

“Of course,” he finally says, sighing and nodding simultaneously. “Apologies for my recklessness, you are right, of course.”

[alucardrakul]

END

"The blight does not discriminate; devil, dhampir, or cambion, we do our best not to help it along its path." Empathetic and informative, Alucard did his best to put it gently but delivered every word with characteristically harsh, deadpan severity. Blood didn't flow through the dhampir's veins, but he could feel a throbbing at his temple as a migraine began to set in. Alucard hoped the man was better with his weaponry than exercising common sense. Legionnaires were immune to the effects of the blight, but this one would make a poor member of their ranks. "You're far from home, put your thoughts first toward survival, or else you won't live long enough to worry about how quickly the blight will consume you." That was the best advice that he could offer before he moved to put the fretting man behind him.

[alucardrakul]

These people would be their own deathfall. Doomed, blight ridden, and stubborn - that was just the Iskarans, which said nothing for those who'd been at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Fish out of water, or in this case, a camel out of the desert. Alucard lacked social grace, he was better suited working at the side of Iskrates than he was mingling with the asylum-seekers, but there was a son that wove from the throats of many. The legionnaire had been feeding on scraps and blighted blood for so long that he had almost forgotten what it meant to stand the throngs of so many at once. By scent alone, it was overstimulating, but the voices and the needs echoed across the battered stones of the Keep.

"All across Taravell fools test their mettle against the blight and always come up wanting." Dark and critical, haunting, red eyes remained fixed and unblinking. The dhampir wasn't in the same habits of a strigoi, basic things like blinking and breathing could only feel forced and unnecessary to someone who required neither. Closing his eyes was only useful when there was something he desperately did not wish to see. "I've been to Ankhuria, the desert that was once a rich forest, Amon Sûl, and Maferath. I'd expect someone who danced the spears to know better than to poke at it." It had been at least a decade now, "Burn it, Ankhurian, lest your ancestors watch history repeat itself."

In all frankness, Mikhael had thought he was alone. The voice breaking through the silence distracted from his thoughtful examination and proved otherwise. Luckily for his fledgling pride, he didn’t quite jump in surprise at the sound, but it was close. Jerking his hand away from where he was poking a piece of blighted meat with a stick, his head snapped up and it fell with the most peculiar sight. 

A dhampir. 

Surprising by all accounts, considering the number of witchers around them. Then again, a quick look down gave him a glimpse of the Legion’s armor, and that was enough for some sense of understanding to dawn. 

Clearing his throat in embarrassment, he nodded. 

“I was considering it,” he admits, a tad slowly, wondering if asking the question that had been weighing on him would at worst expose his identity to a stranger. Cambion’s weren’t generally very welcomed by most. “I was just a tad curious.”